


In Which Preternatural Beings Attempt to Rewrite The Realm and the Throne

by submerging_artist



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fairies, Fantasy, M/M, Magic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:39:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25009348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/submerging_artist/pseuds/submerging_artist
Summary: A spin-off of The Realm and the Throne. Dedicated to Karenkk and her perpetually suffering fans.
Comments: 30
Kudos: 14





	1. The Rescue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Karenkk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karenkk/gifts).



The split was infinitesimal. So brief that the average eye could easily dismiss it as an optical illusion. But Sasha saw it. 

Sasha saw the night sky split in two, pulled back like a velvet curtain, revealing a carpet of bright blue and green. Only to disappear into the darkness as quickly as it came.

Yes, Sasha saw it. Because she had been waiting for it. 

Immediately she raised herself up, cupped her hand to her mouth, and emitted a piercing scream so high that no mortal ear could ever detect it. Within seconds, her three sisters arrived, and she could hear the others coming up behind them, the beat of thousands of tiny wings vibrating in the heavy air, wings with the strength of titanium filament. 

Sasha surveyed her vast swarm of troops. To an unsuspecting foe, they would resemble nothing more than fireflies, mere annoyances to be cursed at and swatted away. Satisfied, she gestured to Kamila, the youngest of the four sisters, who hovered nearby. “Assemble your team and return to home base. You know what to do.” Kamila nodded, and peeled off her phalanx to the west.

Anna nudged Alena, the eldest, and murmured “How does she ‘know what to do’ when we don’t even know what’s going on?”

Alena looked straight into the darkness and shook her head. “I don’t know, but I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

Kamila had no idea how much time had elapsed since she and her team arrived at the dilapidated barn the Russian fairies called home. As soon as her feet hit the dirt she sprung to her full height of 5 feet and went straight to work. She had tried to prepare for every conceivable scenario and wanted to have as many options as possible, but this would be her first test in crisis management and the last thing she wanted to do was disappoint Sasha. Of course, if the swarm managed to get to the battle site before damage occurred, there would be no worries, but even with all of Sasha’s careful preparations, chances were slim.

And then she heard it. They were coming. She could tell that the mission had been a success because the usual low hum of wings in motion now sounded like a relentless buzzsaw tearing through the night. Yeah, she thought, carrying a human body will do that.

Kamila called to her team, and together they threw open the doors of the massive barn. The swarm approached steadily, buoying its precious cargo aloft with military precision. Kamila held her breath as the troops slowly lowered their mass until she was face to face with what was now her patient. 

Her eyes grew wide. Her small frame shivered. “We can’t bring him in here,” she gasped, “the conditions are too unsanitary! Quick, take him behind the barn! I have fresh linens and a bed of clover.”

As the swarm disappeared around the corner, Sasha, Anna, and Alena touched down on the dirt floor of the barn and sprang to full height. 

Anna cleared her throat, raw from the night air, and began speaking with as even a tone as she could manage under the circumstances. “Sasha, sister, do you know what you have done?”

“And do you know who that is?!” Alena cried, giving no credence to Anna’s attempts at diplomacy. 

“Of course, I know who that is,” Sasha sniffed. “Why do you think I went to such great lengths to save him?”

Alena crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. “Well, I don’t know, Sasha. Given that it is not our job to meddle with the contiguous course of human history, why don’t you tell me why we saved Yuzuru Hanyu, thus altering his destiny and the fate of mankind for all eternity, hmm?”

Much to Alena’s surprise, Sasha’s lower lip began to quiver. 

“BECAUSE I SIMPLY COULDN’T BEAR IT ANYMORE!” she sobbed. And even though both sisters wanted to run to her side, Anna and Alena dug their heels into the dirt, hypnotized by the unprecedented sight of tears streaming down the cheeks of their rough-and-tumble never-say-die warrior queen and turning into snowflakes as they hit the air.

“Sasha…”

‘I have seen him in my Mind’s Eye,” she whispered.

“…What?”

“I HAVE SEEN HIM IN MY MIND’S EYE SINCE THE DAY HE WAS BORN.”

Sasha threw back her shoulders and stood tall. “Since the day he was born,” she declared in loud clear voice, “I have seen him, imprisoned, abused, tortured. I have seen him, forced from his birthplace and his birthright, only to be lured into trap after trap by the false hope of love, his body decimated, his heart bruised and battered. I have seen the horrors he has witnessed and the horrors he has suffered. And when I learned that he was to be filleted by rubrum steel like a guinea hen, I could bear it no longer!”

“Sasha, oh, sweet Sasha,” Anna whispered, mouth agape.

“Sasha,” Alena echoed, “Sweet Sasha, that is nothing but bullshit, and you know it!”

Her cheeks blazing red, Sasha whirled on her heel as if she had been slapped by the heaviest of hands. “’Bullshit?!’ Sister, how dare you?!” she hissed.

“How dare I? This is how dare I!” Alena pointed to the far corner of the barn and flicked her wrist. An object the size of a breadbasket flew off a shelf, across the expanse of the barn, and landed at the feet of the three sisters with a resounding thud, sending clouds of dust up into the air.

It was a book. A large leather-bound book adorned with lettering embossed in gold. 

Anna leaned forward to get a better look, and read the title aloud. “The Realm and the Throne?”

Sasha closed her eyes in order to avoid those of her sisters. “Oh fuck,” she sighed.

“Well put, Sasha!” Alena smirked. “See, you are not the only one who’s read the book. And I guess Kamila has too, because how else could you have talked her into such a ridiculous and improbable caper?”

“Well, I haven’t read it,” grumbled Anna, “so someone want to fill me in?”

“Look, Alena, everything I said about Yuzuru was true. And when I saw what was about to happen in Chapter 44, it was also true that I simply couldn’t bear it. I mean, I was so excited to know that our beautiful boy had finally landed on our shores, and that those horrible scars from that ghastly flogging were healed. It looked like his fortunes were finally turning, but then MOROZOV and that fucking RUBRUM STEEL! Ye Gods, who DOES that?!”

“What is happening right now?” Anna wondered aloud.

“Anna, the book first appeared at the back of the pantry in the Autumn of last year.” Alena quickly held up her hand to keep Anna’s retort at bay. “It had one chapter, then nothing. It certainly was an intriguing chapter, and every once in a while I’d dig it out of the pantry just to reread it. But then one day there was a second chapter. And it was even more intriguing. It suddenly dawned on me that this story was in the process of being written, just like history. And I felt sure that Yuzuru Hanyu was a real boy. I guess Sasha came to the same conclusion.”

Sasha gave her sister a wicked side-eye, and crossed her arms in a huff.

“So what’s the story about?” Anna asked.

Sasha and Alena exchanged glances, and Alena shrugged. “You’re just going to have to read the book, we don’t have time to summarize.”

“Wait a minute!” Sasha exclaimed. “If the book is a written account of his life, then Chapter 44 must have changed! It will tell the tale of the brave warrior queen whose fairies airlifted Yuzuru out of Morozov’s evil clutches!” She flopped to the ground and pulled the book into her lap, riffling furiously through the pages. Anna and Alena crowded behind to read over her shoulder.

Sasha went still. Alena turned pale. 

Anna read aloud: “He didn’t even have energy left to whimper in pain as the guards came in to drag his broken form away, his wounds reopened as they abraded against the cold marble floor.” She looked up at her sisters. “Well, THAT doesn’t sound very nice.”

“Alena” said Sasha, “if Yuzuru wasn’t rescued from the book, then who is it bleeding in our clover bed behind our barn?” 

“I don’t know, sister, but for all intents and purposes, right now it’s YOUR clover bed and YOUR barn.”


	2. The Conundrum

Engulfed in darkness, Yuzuru could sense only an outline of the staircase that lowered into the abyss. He could not see. He could not hear. He was vaguely aware of the presence of something inanimate before him, but felt nothing but air when he lurched toward the door, a door that opened with no resistance but slammed shut once he stumbled blindly through it. A few feet lower, another door. Another slam. 

Yuzuru did not hear the tick of keys but he could feel the doors lock, and instinctually he knew there was no going back.

Suddenly, he felt pin pricks. Sharp pin pricks. Radiating from one area. And while at this moment the geography of his own body was completely foreign, he thought they came from his right shoulder. And then more pin pricks. Sharp. Hundreds of them, all over his torso and back, sending signals to his brain, screaming “Wake up!”

Huh, thought Yuzuru, I guess I must still be alive. And with that he sat down on the step where he was standing, and did nothing but dangle his feet above the abyss below.

Oh, my,” whispered Anna. “He is so beautiful.”

Sasha nodded in agreement. “The chamomiles are just stunning, Kamila. You and your team have done a remarkable job.” 

“Ye gods, am I the only one here who feels like we’re at a funeral?” Alena groused.

The clover bed behind the barn had been recessed a foot deep in order to accommodate layer after layer of spun linen presoaked in baths of Russian sage, golden root, and leopard’s bane. Every cut, every slice, every wound that grazed Yuzuru’s porcelain-like skin had its own team of tiny surgeons who sutured with gossamer thread and the finest, sharpest gold needles, sutures so tight and minuscule that they could not be detected by the human eye. 

Yuzuru’s body was wrapped several times in lengths of gauze before the swarm of paramedics lowered him slowly and carefully into the bed of linen and clover. A white and yellow blanket of bright chamomiles covered his body. Only his delicate face was on view.

“Shut up, Alena,” Sasha hissed. “Kamila, don’t you think we should build some kind of structure against the elements? There’s a possibility of rain and maybe even snow tonight.”

“Or we could just set him on fire like a funeral pyre,” muttered Alena.

“Yes, we’ve drawn up plans for a bower, and the contractor swarm should be here in the next few minutes with a shipment of Siberian larch boughs.”

Sasha beamed. “You really thought of everything, Kamila, I’m so proud of you. Anna, aren’t you proud of your little apprentice?”

Anna gave a tight smile. “Yes, I am, but I wished I had been consulted beforehand. I mean, couldn’t you have used me in a similar capacity? Two heads and all that?”

Kamila turned to look at Anna. “You didn’t read the book.”

“I didn’t know about the book.”

“Exactly.”

“Look,” Alena interjected, “has anybody thought of what we are going to do with him once he wakes up? Seems to me that’s the more critical question.”

Anna turned to look at Alena. “You should’ve told me about the book.”

“Coulda shoulda woulda, the question remains.”

Kamila stifled a yawn and stretched her arms and wings to the sky. “Can we go inside first and take a load off? I need a drink, and my teams are exhausted and want to hang.”

Kamila put her boots up on the whisky barrel that served as a cocktail table, and stretched her neck back, watching the swarms of medical teams fly to their various corners of the rafters. They all needed sleep, and most of them preferred to hang. Their resemblance to bats kept humans at a safe distance; no one from the Morozov household had ever ventured beyond the cracked barn doors, so convinced were they that the barn with the giant hay loft – once perfect for clandestine trysts in the afternoons -- was infested with hundreds, no, thousands of bats. The rafters provided unlimited space for sleeping, and the hanging position was beneficial to the fairies’ circulation.

Alena approached the table with a bottle and four shot glasses. 

“Smirnoff?” Kamila frowned. “Where’s my Stoli?”

“This is all the distillers had this week. They said they would make it up to us by rustling up some Beluga for next week’s delivery.”

In addition to their odd sleeping habits, Russian fairies were also known for their ability to hold their liquor. Russian fairies could drink up to three times their body weight with no adverse effects.

“I don’t need some ridiculously overpriced brand of vodka to get me through the week,” replied Kamila. “I just need my Stoli.”

“Alena, are you seriously lighting up right now?” Sasha looked at her elder sister with distain. “You know I hate that stuff. And it’s bad for your health!”

“What’s it gonna do? Kill me? Stunt my growth? I’m a 416-year-old fairy, Sasha. You let Kamila throw back a shot any time day or night. I like my Russian sage, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it, get over yourself.”

The four sisters sat in silence, each lost in her own thoughts, when Kamila suddenly perked up. 

“Hey, you guys haven’t told me about the battle! I want all the gory details!”

Sasha, Alena, and Anna exchanged glances, but no one replied.

“Listen, sisters, I stitched that boy up from head to toe, I want gory details and I want them now.”

Sasha sighed. “Well, once we got there, Yuzuru was already on the ground, bleeding. Morozov had struck twice, I think, and was aiming for Yuzu’s belly, but I directed the left flank to cover Morozov’s face. Let me tell you,” she grinned, “those girls held on for dear life, he was trying so hard to shake them off. But every last fairy stood her ground, and soon he was on his knees whimpering without any hope of taking a breath. It took about 3 minutes to finish him off.

“Then we hoisted Yuzu on our shoulders, and flew off into the night.” Sasha held her glass aloft, cursed the house of Morozov, and threw back her vodka.

“Was there a lot of blood?” asked Kamila.

“No,” replied Alena. “Not really. If we had arrived seconds later, it would’ve been a real blood bath, just like in the book. That fucking rubrum steel. We were lucky. Yuzuru was lucky.”

Kamila mulled Alena’s words over with a frown. “Are you telling me,” she spoke slowly, “that when you airlifted him out of the battle site, he had only been struck twice?”

Kamila had her sisters’ attention. “Yuzuru’s body was covered with wounds. I mean COVERED with wounds. He had been sliced and diced. His skin looked like beef carpaccio. Why do you think my medical teams were working overtime to save him?! There are thousands of stitches all over his body! There are wounds that we have to redress every hour on the hour!”

Alena’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, ye gods. Do you think…”

“That no matter in what safe haven he is hidden, his body will continue to manifest whatever befalls him in the book?” Sasha finished the question.

“Gods,” declared Kamila, throwing back another shot, “I HATE that book.”

Alena saw Sasha’s lips curl into a sly smile. 

“What?”

“If we cannot save him as he is,” Sasha replied, “then we will have to save him as another entity.”

Alena barked a laugh and rolled her eyes. “What the fuck are you talking about, Sasha? Do you want him to be your Peter Pan?” she mocked. “You know you’re barking up the wrong tree. HE LIKES BOYS.”

“I’m not thinking about that,” Sasha sneered. “I’m thinking about giving him his freedom. I’m thinking about making him immortal! He will become one of us!”

Before her sisters could say another word in protest, the warrior queen raised her hand to them and rose up to her full stance.

“Conversion Cocoon,” she declared, her voice resonating throughout the barn.

And with those two words, the entire swarm went stone silent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I regret nothing.


	3. The Question

Kamila grimaced when the low buzz of the alarm clock finally pierced the dim light of her shallow sleep. “Why?” she groaned. “Why???” And then she remembered. 

Yuzuru.

Yuzuru, the beautiful and cursed heir to the Hanyu dynasty, the tragic protagonist of The Realm and the Throne, was now her patient, covered in salve, wrapped in gauze, and half-buried in the back yard. In the wee hours following last night’s shouting match, Kamila still had the presence of mind to set her alarm for dawn in order to tend to her patient, unimpeded by her bothersome sisters.

She slipped into her boots, and, neglecting to lace them, shuffled into the mess hall at the foot of the barn. Cook was already there, prepping for the breakfast rush.

“I’m surprised to see you up so early, Doctor, given that melee last night.” Cook put the kettle on for Kamila’s morning tea.

“Oh,” Kamila murmured, “you heard all that.”

“I think we all heard all that.”

“Well, you’ll be happy to know that we actually made some headway once the shouting died down.”

“Really? So everybody is on board with the idea of the Conversion Cocoon?”

“Eh, I don’t know that we’re ‘on board’ exactly, but we did decide to work together to see if we can come up with a solution to make the process foolproof.”

Conversion Cocoon was a highly controversial method of converting another being, most likely a mortal human, into a fairy. The metamorphosis was much like that of a caterpillar into a butterfly, but the subject had to remain in dream state throughout the entire process. Reducing anxiety in humans to the level needed to maintain transformation was almost impossible. Humans had been known to fight against the physical constraints and tear at the cocoon with manic force. There were hives in France that had succeeded using the method on prepubescent girl humans, but to date, no hive in Russia had ever fully converted any being, human or otherwise, into a fairy.

“Sasha said that IF there is a solution, our collective brain power can find it.”

“In other words, Queen’s strategy was to appeal to her sisters’ egos,” Cook smiled ruefully.

Kamila returned the smile. “Yeah. That’s why she’s queen.”

“I hate to tell you, Doctor, but I don’t think the collective brain power is going to be up and running today. Here’s your tea. I made it just the way you like it, and I think you’re going to need it.”

Kamila’s just-the-way-you-like-it tea was a caravan blend with a spot of milk and a shot of vodka.

“Cook, you’re a treasure.”

Cook’s cryptic warning became manifest as soon as Kamila stepped into the makeshift shelter. 

Yuzuru’s beatific visage remained blissfully unchanged, much to Kamila’s relief, but sitting next to him on a milking stool was Anna, red-eyed and disheveled. A rash had crept up her neck and surrounded her mouth, a telltale sign that she had been in tears for hours. Her body rocked back and forth with a manic rhythm. And in her arms, clutched against her chest, was The Realm and the Throne.

“Are you kidding me,” Kamila said under her breath. She turned to her barely functioning wreck of a sister. “Anna. ANNA. Please tell me you did not stay up all night reading that bloody book.”

Anna, suddenly aware of another being in her presence, looked up with red-rimmed eyes. “Kam’la,” she slurred. “Kam’la, I love him. I luuuuuuuuuv him.”

The Doctor covered her face and moaned aloud. “Oh, no, Anna. No no no no no.”

Anna was punch love drunk.

For while it was true that fairies were immune to the downside of alcohol consumption, it was also true that they could still get drunk. Falling down drunk. On love.

Kamila reached for the book that Anna cradled like a baby, and the two of them wrestled for ownership. 

“Anna, give me the book! You’ve gone off the deep end, and now I’ve got to tend to you too! What made you think you could ingest the entire thing in one night without any repercussions?!” Kamila snatched the tome from the arms of her sister, and Anna slumped to the ground in a sobbing mess.

“I LOVE HIM SO MUCH,” she wailed, loud enough to wake some of the shallow sleepers in the barn. 

Kamila expected to hear Alena’s voice next, and she was not wrong.

“What the everloving fuck is going on out here? I just went to bed three hours ago, Kamila!” Alena’s voice was groggy with sleep but ripe with annoyance, her default mode.

“It’s not me! It’s Anna! Look! She read the book and now she’s punch love drunk!”

“’LENA,” Anna sobbed. “’LENAAAAAAAA YOU SHOUVE TOLE MEEEEEE.”

Kamila looked at Alena. “You know, you really should have told her about the book.”

“Fuck. C’mon, my sweet Anna,” Alena gathered the soggy heap of a sister into her arms, and headed toward the barn. “Let’s see if we can get you sobered up.”

Sasha was in the middle of her morning meditations when she heard the commotion downstairs. “Gods, it never ends,” she muttered. “Queening is not all that it’s cracked up to be.”

She made her way through the lounge to the dilapidated banquette that was perpetually reserved for the four sisters, only to find Anna, still in last night’s clothes, slumped into the arms of her older sister. Without preamble, Alena looked up at the warrior queen. “She’s punch love drunk.” 

“With whom?” asked Sasha incredulously.

“With Yuzuru.”Alena nodded at the leather-bound book at the end of the table, and Anna wailed at the sound of her beloved’s name.

“She didn’t.”

“Oh, she did,” replied Alena. “Every word. Every nuance. All night.”

“It’s amazing she can even function at all.”

“Right?? Cook is preparing a hair-of-the-dog brew, so maybe we can get her under control. Kamila is tending to he-who-must-not-be-named.”

“I HAVE SEEN HIM IN MY MIND’S EYE,” Anna cried.

Alena gave Anna an awkward shove, and the lovesick sister slumped down in the seat of the banquette. Alena fumbled around for her pouch of rolling papers and a bag of sage. She gave Sasha a meek look, and asked quietly, “Would you mind terribly?”

“Knock yourself out,” replied the warrior queen, as she reached into the pocket of her bathrobe for her ever-present flask.

An hour later, the three sisters buffered by food, drink and substances, Alena cleared her throat and reopened the topic on everyone’s mind. 

“I’ve been thinking about your proposal, Sasha. And I think we forgot to ask a very basic question. Perhaps THE most basic question.”

“What’s that?”

“Does Yuzuru WANT to become a fairy?”

Sasha recoiled, and Anna whimpered at the sound of his name.

“Why WOULDN’T he want to become a fairy? He’s had the most miserable of lives. And from all we’ve seen, his body is going to become The Picture of Dorian Gray. He should be thrilled to have this chance!”

“But Sasha, the book makes it very clear what he’s about. He is resigned to his fate. He’s a survivor, not a coward. I don’t think he would want his story left untold.

“And what about a mate?” Alena continued. “He still thinks there is a chance that Javi might be out there waiting for him back in Canada.”

Anna sat up suddenly. “Javi thinks he’s dead,” she reported.

“Yes, but that doesn’t diminish Yuzuru’s need for a mate. You make him a fairy, Sasha, then what? We only know of one hive of males in Russia. They are all very cute, yes, but none of them are Javi.”

“Javi doesn’t deserve him,” Anna grumbled. “Fifty sides of gray, Sasha.”

“This is not book club, Anna,” snapped Sasha. “I will concede, dear Alena, that we should consider Yuzuru’s feelings about this, but don’t you agree that we should at least be able to make our case to him, once he wakes up?”

“Exactly. ‘Once he wakes up.’ But we are under a deadline.”

“What deadline?” Sasha scoffed. “It’s not like he’s going to rise up out of the flower bed and take off on his own two legs.”

“The next chapter, Sasha. That’s the deadline. The next chapter of The Realm and the Throne. We don’t know what’s in it. And it’s a day and a half away.”


	4. The Agreement

“No. No. Absolutely not. Under no circumstances. No.”

“Kamila, you are being really annoying right now.”

“Well, you’re being ridiculous, Sasha. What makes you think you can just,” Kamila snapped her fingers, ”bring someone out of a coma?”

The four sisters stood under the bower and next to the bed of chamomiles that served as Yuzuru’s sickbed. “It’s extremely dangerous, and there’s absolutely no way you can guarantee it’ll work. Would you really want to put Yuzuru’s health at risk this way?”

“Yuzuru…” Anna made kissy lips. “Yuuuzuuuruuuu…”

“See? Anna agrees with me, Sasha. She’s a medical professional, and she ought to know.”

“Anna doesn’t know what day it is, Kamila.”

“Nevertheless, we simply can’t force the issue. Not only will he have to wake up on his own, he’ll have to be fully cognizant as well. Just imagine the shock of coming out of a coma surrounded by a field of fairies!” 

“Not to mention he’ll have no idea how and why we know everything about his life,” Alena added. “He doesn’t know the book exists.”

“Code word,” Anna whispered conspiratorially. 

“What?”

“We should have a code word so when we get too close to a secret we can shhhhh.” Anna put a finger to her lips. 

Alena rolled her eyes. “Sure. Just yell ‘Spoilers!’ The rest of us can keep our wits about us, thank you.”

Kamila turned to the warrior queen. “Sasha, I know you’re worried about the next chapter. We all are. But we can’t force Yuzu out of a coma, and we can’t force him into a decision. Besides, maybe the new chapter will be all exposition. It’s happened before.”

“That’s true,” nodded Alena. “Maybe tomorrow’s update will be a description of the royal ballroom. Or how many cakes Eteri and her children take with their tea in the afternoons.”

Anna gasped. “Eteri! Could you believe that her children have a different father than her husband??”

“Anna,” Alena explained dryly, “Anatoly is paralyzed from the neck down. Everyone in Russia knows he is not the father.”

Kamila cleared her throat. “Time is running out, sisters, and we must be of one accord,” she declared. “Yuzuru must wake up on his own, and we will take the next chapter as it comes. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” said Alena.

“You know what’s best,” sighed Sasha.

Anna grinned. “Spoilers!” 

Yuzuru sensed warmth. A vague warmth that started from the southern most point of his personal planet. His toes, maybe? It moved slowly but with what seemed to be a definite purpose. Yes, there was energy. He could FEEL the energy. A static electrical current. A hum. A steady low pitch. Now a steady high pitch. Was this his nervous system? He once read that it was.

He was aware of something else. A drone. A low drone. But of what? Sounds? Voices? He couldn’t make it out. Muffled voices? Was he alone? Not alone? 

And then he saw it: light. Light at the top of what was the descending staircase into the abyss. He heard the tick of keys and the doors swing open behind him. The path was clear. It’s up to me, he thought. He steadied himself. He looked toward the light. And he raised his foot to the next step.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun dun DUN


	5. The Reveal

The battle for first dibs on the new chapter started around 5:30 a.m., when Sasha tiptoed stealthily into the lounge only to find Alena perched at the edge of the banquette with The Realm and the Throne clutched to her bosom. Updates of the book usually appeared around 7:00 a.m. every Saturday morning. The silence between the two sisters throbbed in Sasha’s ears as she motioned to Alena with a gesture that was meant to be perceived as “Scoot over, please” but came across as “Make way, bitch.” 

Cook, already prepping in the kitchen and always one step ahead, delivered a steaming pot of the strongest black tea she could conjure to the table, followed by a liter of Stolichnaya. 

Sasha raised an eyebrow. “Overnight delivery,” Cook answered.

By 6:15 a.m. all four sisters sat slumped in the banquette, sleep-deprived, anxiety-ridden, and, in one case, love-hungover. No one had the energy to mount a passionate argument for her right to the book, so each case boiled down to monotone sentences.

“I am the warrior queen, I have seniority.”

“I am the eldest, Sasha, I literally have seniority. Besides,” Alena hugged the book tighter, “finders keepers, losers weepers.” 

“What, are you 6? I am Yuzuru’s doctor, and I need to know what to expect in order to properly treat him.”

“Blerg,” Anna gurgled.

After a half hour of half-hearted bickering, Sasha turned to Alena. “Okay, here’s a thought: what if you just read it out loud to the rest of us?” The doctor gave a squeak of protest, but the queen heaved a sigh of resignation. “Kamila, I really don’t want to have to pry the book from her cold, dead hands, do you?”

And so, precisely at 7:00, Alena took a deep breath, cleared her throat, and read aloud.

“’The Royal Palace of Russia was a sight of unparalleled opulence and grandeur.’ HA! CALLED IT!”

Sasha and Kamila clapped their hands in unison. “Yay! Exposition!” 

“Uuuuuggghhh,” groaned Anna, flopping over on the banquette. “Just skip through this part.”

“’Skip through this part’? What are you talking about? You have to respect the structure, Anna!” declared Sasha.

“Besides,” Alena added, “these passages are beautifully written. Remember Yuzuru’s room and his garden at the villa?”

“And the winter carnival with the snow animals!” Kamila smiled.

“And the tea ceremony on Yuzu’s birthday?” Sasha chimed in.

“Yeah, I might have, uh, missed some of that,” Anna muttered. Her sisters glared.

“Well, how else was I supposed to get through 44 chapters in one night? I like STORY. I like PLOT. Besides, we’ve all seen the Royal Palace, why do we need to hear a description?”

“Because it’s important to the story, you cretin,” snapped Kamila. “Respect the process.”

“Alena,” Sasha nodded, “please continue.”

“’It’s construction started when the first Tsar of the House of Plushenko…’” 

Fifty minutes later, Sasha and Kamila were still on the edge of their seats with wide eyes and eager smiles, fascinated by the mental pictures painted of the Royal Palace, the Blood Room, the Throne of Bones, the political alliances, and the sexual intrigue. Anna was face down on the table, sound asleep. Then Alena reached the pivotal moment in the chapter: Yuzuru’s first appearance at court.

“Hey, SPOILERS!” Kamila shouted, elbowing Anna in the side, hard. 

Anna popped up. “Are we there yet?”

When Alena finished reading the tale of Yuzuru’s performance in Chapter 45 of The Realm and the Throne, all four sisters, much like the audience in the book, sat in collective silence. “Wow,” Sasha whispered. “Yuzuru,” Anna whined. “Gods,” Kamila slowly rose from her seat. “I have to see this.”

And with that sudden realization—that the artist in question was buried in their backyard--Sasha, Kamila, and Anna scrambled out of the booth.

“Wait a minute!” Alena shouted after them. “The chapter is not over!”

“Alena!” Kamila called back over her shoulder. “Screw the book, we’ve got THE REAL THING!”

“Hmm, that’s true,” she thought as she let her gaze wander back to her place on the page. “Well, I’m almost done anyway.” Her eyes followed the rest of the words to the end of the chapter.

“Oh, ye gods,” she thought.

“OH YE GODS!” she shouted.

Kamila’s swarm of interns had been hard at work since the break of dawn. Even at full height, it took the team close to an hour to uncover their patient, dig him out of the clover bed, carefully unwrap his body, and gently turn him facedown to dress the myriad of wounds on his back. But by the time Kamila, Sasha, and Anna reached the backyard bower, the interns had ceased all motion and stood dumbstruck. 

Was it true?

The sisters gasped in unison. It was indeed true.

Yuzuru’s skin was breathtaking. Rejuvenated. Regenerated. Nothing short of a masterpiece. And a complete mystery. 

“I’ve never seen anything like this in my entire life,” Kamila declared. 

“Me either,” Anna murmured, her eyes wandering further down Yuzuru’s back and now fixated on his glutes.

“The book sure did…skip over a lot of details,” gulped Sasha.

“Yes, well, do you have any bright ideas on what we should do now, sister?” The irritation in Kamila’s words belied the panic she was starting to feel in her chest.

Sasha’s jaw dropped open, but the voice they heard was Alena’s.

“SISTERS! OH, YE GODS, SISTERS! HE’S WITH PLUSHENKO! YUZURU IS WITH PLUSHENKO!

“YUZURU IS ABOUT TO HAVE THE BEST NIGHT OF HIS LIFE, AND HE’S GOING TO MISS IT!”

And with that news, the warrior queen slumped to the ground in a dead faint.


	6. The Tsar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place immediately after Chapter 45 of The Realm & the Throne. In this AU, subsequent chapters haven’t been published yet.

Alena and Sasha were known to have what Anna and Kamila referred to as “Fundamental Differences of Opinion,” or FDOs. These ranged anywhere from when to get up in the morning to when to go to sleep at night and everything in between. Mostly it was good-natured bickering. But the sisters reached an impasse when it came to one FDO in particular: Tsar Evgeni Plushenko.

The popularity of Tsar Plushenko was never in dispute. His likeness graced hundreds of thousands of household goods, souvenirs, and tchotchkes across Russia. Villages, no matter how small, had at least one shop in the square dedicated to Plushenko merchandise. The standard rendition of the Tsar, manufactured by this cottage industry, made Evgeni more attractive than he actually was: his hawkish nose was minimized, his cheekbones made more prominent, his jaw squared, and his robin-egg blue eyes flecked with gold leaf. Many a mediocre painter made a good living by perfecting the Tsar’s ideal visage on porcelain eggcups, paper fans, and tin boxes. Songs extolling both the virtues and the conquests of Tsar Plushenko were sung in every town square on every occasion, and school children performed choral arrangements of those with lyrics suitable for public consumption.

Alena was obsessed with all things Evgeni. She amassed a considerable collection of gold-rimmed decorative plates depicting major events in his life, christened with such titles as “The Gods-Ordained Coronation of His Imperial Majesty Tsar Evgeni Viktorovich Pleshenko” and “The Gods-Ordained Birth of Grand Duke Alexander Plushenko to His Imperial Majesty Tsar Evgeni Viktorovich Pleshenko” a painting notable for its lack of a birthmother. Alena’s collection grew so large that she could no longer house them in her room, so the sisters agreed to hang them all in a place of prominence in the dining hall, a small price to pay to keep the more mercurial of the four sisters happy.

Sasha did not share Alena’s enthusiasm for the Tsar. In fact, she loathed him. Based on stories she had heard from her fellow queens, she knew Plushenko to be ruthless, apathetic, and cruel, not only to his enemies but to his allies and bed partners alike. Alena pointed out that fairies—especially those fueled by alcohol at hive gatherings—were notorious gossips. “True,” Sasha conceded, but rebutted that fairies had eyes and ears everywhere, which was also true. Their ability to transform at will from the height of a pubescent girl to the size of a fly in an instant made them highly efficient and accurate spies. 

Every military hive had a reconnaissance unit, and Sasha was deservedly proud of hers. They were a tight-knit, precise, and efficient department; not one of her intelligence agents had ever failed an assignment. For highly classified and covert missions, however, Sasha relied solely on one agent and one agent alone: Elizaveta. A highly decorated veteran in the field, Liza was known as a loner who played by her own rules. Though she had been close to retirement many times, the queen could always find some kind of bait to lure the polished professional back into fieldwork.

And it was one of these risky missions that one night found Liza trapped in the top compartment of the Tsar’s ornate jewelry box in the unfortunate position of hearing his Imperial Majesty in the throes of a ménage a trois with 18-year-old twin duchesses.

A rumor had been circulating about a now-infamous row that had occurred between Tsar Plushenko and America’s Ambassador to Russia, Brian Boitano. The well-known facts were these: relations between Russia and America were prickly at best, Ambassador Boitano displayed boorish behavior at the State dinner and somehow managed to insult not only the House of Plushenko but all of Russia, and before the lights of the palace were dimmed for the evening Boitano and his entourage were deposited on a ship back to America. But when the vessel arrived in the territory of Alaska, the Ambassador was nowhere to be found. Sworn statements taken from crew members and Russian officials claimed that Boitano was on board when the ship left the harbor. No more was known, and the assumption was made that at an inebriated Ambassador had fallen overboard. The investigation was closed.

According to fairy sources, however, there was, of course, more to the story. Boitano, a member of America’s secret Masonic society, wore a large and stunning ruby, diamond, and gold ring on his right hand, signifying to those in the know that he had achieved Master Mason status. The Tsar had taken a liking to the ring, and several times remarked to the American how much he admired it, a not-so-subtle hint that the Tsar would be happy to accept it as a token of mutual esteem and to let bygones be bygones. Apparently Boitano did not get the hint nor the threat behind it.

By secret order of the Warrior Queen, Liza had been sent to the Royal Palace to act on a hunch that the ruby ring was still in Russia and in Pushenko’s possession. The top agent knew the terrain well, and made a beeline to the Tsar’s bedchamber. All intelligence fairies knew that the Tsar kept his most prized possessions in a grand and ornate music box that had once belonged to Catherine the Great; the trick was getting it open, as it required two human-sized hands to unlock the apparatus.

Tiny and nimble as a fly, Liza cased the Tsar’s chambers a few times before she touched down on the soft wool of the carpet, immediately springing to full height. For Liza the legendary music box was familiar territory, so she quickly manipulated the tumblers using both hands. The top popped up, but as she lifted the lid, she heard the latch to the bedchamber door turn. In that second before her body shrank to the spot where her hand held the heavy lid, she caught a glimpse of the two half-clothed teenaged girls. A mixture of panic and shock caught Liza off balance, and the tiny agent dropped to the velvet floor of the music box, the lid slamming shut above her. As she landed with a thud, her head barely missed a chunky gold ring encrusted in rubies and diamonds, bearing the inscription “Robur et Furor” -- Strength and Fury.

Hours later, in the middle of the night, the Warrior Queen sat alone in the lounge banquette, dozing off and on while waiting for her top spy to report back to home base. Suddenly, two bottles of Stoli appeared on the table. Bleary-eyed, Sasha looked up at a disheveled and clearly rattled Liza. “No disrespect, my Queen,” she declared as she settled into the booth, “but both of these bottles are for me.”

“Sasha. Sasha! C’mon, snap out of it!”

The sound of Kamila’s voice forced the Queen to open her eyes. She and her sister were the only fairies in the yard full of clover. The words “He’s with Plushenko” bounced around her foggy brain.

“Sasha, you’ve got to get up. He’s awake! YUZURU IS AWAKE.”

**Author's Note:**

> I regret nothing.


End file.
